Sapling Switches
by Laburnum Steelfang
Summary: Eridan is a spoiled little lord, and Tavros takes his punishments. Pale EriTav, other pairs later, warnings for slavery and child abuse.
1. Chapter 1

"Of course things were always so much simpler with my oldest." Dualscar of House Ampora, the Orphaner of Derse, swirled the night-black coffee in his mug and frowned at it as if his problems were the coffee's fault. He surreptitiously unhooked a flask from his belt and slopped a little of the contents into the mug. His host didn't approve of alcohol, but fuck him, Dualscar was the one paying him.

"How so, sir?" asked Darkleer, looking up from the gun on his workbench. The tiny tip of the screwdriver in his hand looked ridiculous attached to the chunky handle, made so to prevent his enormous hands crushing or dropping it. Dualscar knew he had designed it himself, as he did all his tools, and the comical appearance belied their owner's great skill. "Was he more obedient?"

"No, but I had better leverage," Dualscar explained. "Boy's obsessed with his music; if I have to punish him I just have to take his instruments away, or take a cane to his hands. Nah, Eri's a scrapper, I am proud of him but pain doesn't seem to get through to him. And his favourite thing to do is hunt, but I can't very well deny him that. Kid needs all the training he can get." Dualscar noticed Darkleer's slight head-shake of disapproval, but didn't comment.

"Well, sir, I am fortunate. I have never had such problems with my sons."

"Good thing too, you'd have killed the poor little buggers if you tried to smack 'em."

"That is true. When I have had issues with their behaviour a simple explanation of what they did wrong usually suffices."

Dualscar scoffed. "Tried that, it just makes my boys do it again. I can't introduce them at court if I can't get them to behave."

"Well, sir..." Darkleer said, returning to his work. "You did say denying your oldest his music worked. Is there anything else you could use to cause inconvenience or distress rather than pain for your youngest?"

Dualscar sipped his coffee again. "You may be onto something there."


	2. Chapter 2

"So what's your name?"

The bright moonlight lit up the white chalk cliffs of Prospit's coast, the seabreeze cool but not biting. Two little trolls sat on the grass, both wrapped up warmly, though the girl's fine gold-trimmed blue clothing far outclassed the boy's simple brown. Between them, a tiny winged bull chewed joyfully at an apple bigger than its head.

"I-I'm Tavros," the boy said, nibbling at the apple in his own hand. He felt bad about it; he'd just met the girl as she was climbing over the wall of the orchard up the path with her pockets and hat stuffed with the small sharp-tasting fruit, and she had grabbed his hand and pulled him down the path to the little cliffside meadow before she had even looked him in the eye. He had been too surprised to stop her. Apart from the theft, he was sure the apples weren't quite ripe yet, but she'd looked down her nose at him until he took a bite.

"Vriska Serket!" the girl said, pumping his hand hard enough to hurt. "I serve the Light."

Tavros' eyes widened. "No way, I'm Breath!" From under his coat he produced a little polished wooden pendant on a chain, bearing the swirling blue mark. Vriska pulled out her own, a sun made of gold, and the children giggled. Breath and Light were a linked pair within the pantheon, their sacred months occupying opposing points of the year in the human calendar. Breath was spring, welcoming warmth and growing daytime, and Light was autumn, drawing the cold breezes and rains; each contained the other, and their churches worked together often.

"Hey, we've even got the right colours!" Vriska's blue clothing almost matched the Breath sign, and as she cackled he blushed almost the shade of orange traditionally worn by Light's mages and priests. "That's it. We gotta get married."

"What?!"

"Well, not _now,"_ she explained in patronising tones. "Some day. We gotta get ready though. I mean, I'm gonna be four next sweep, that's what, halfway till we can already?"

Tavros nodded nervously. "Which quadrant?" He hoped she wouldn't say black. Blackrom made him nervous, and Vriska made him nervous; the two in conjunction wouldn't be fun.

"Can't be ashen, there's only two of us," said Vriska, and paused, thoughtfully sucking apple skin shreds from between her fangs. "I got a moirail and I think you're a bit wussy for black."

"You, uhh, have a moirail?" Tavros asked, really interested. Three sweeps was surely a bit young to have a steady quadrant. Wow, Vriska was cool.

"Yeah! Her name's Kanaya and her mom went away and mine's always at sea, so it's just us and our lusii and our sisters. And she's jade and she's Space and she's really nice and I think you'll like her..." Vriska paused. "But anyway, that means it's gotta be red." She tossed her apple core away and plunked herself down in his lap. "So hug me!" He did, blushing harder, and she hugged back. It was nice, really; she was softer than his brother and father, and smelled sweeter. She was cold, as highbloods were, and he wanted to warm her up. His bull noticed and headbutted his hand, chirping, and he patted it.

"Oh, look!" He pointed up, and she climbed off him and knelt up to look where he was pointing. "Can you see the cherubs?"

"No way's that a cherub," she said, squinting at the moving patch of darkness in the sky. "That's just a cloud or... no, wait, I see! It is!" She jumped up and down, waving. "Hi, cherubs!"

"Don't do that!" Tavros grabbed her arm. "What if _He_ sees you?"

"Then She'll stop him," Vriska said, pouting. "That's Her job."

Tavros watched the shadow for signs of coming closer. The Queen of Space and the Voice of Time, gods forever bound in combat in the skies of Skaia. He wished Vriska's moirail were here, one who shared the holy aspect of Prospit's guardian.

Vriska tapped her chin. "Think we could find their egg before Derse does?"

"Um, I hope so," said Tavros, still watching.

"No, I mean _us,_ not Prospit! We can find it and be heroes!"

Tavros was unsure about this. "Um, I think we should go home. My dad's gonna be, uhh, wondering, where I am, he told me, and Tinkerbull, to stay, near the orchard wall." The little bull squeaked in agreement.

"And if you listened to your dad you wouldn't have met me, would you?" Vriska put her hands on her hips and shook her mane of hair. "Adventurers don't listen to their dads all the time! And won't he be happy when you bring back a cherub egg and a Marquise's daughter?"

Tavros considered this, and nodded. Surely his dad would come and find him, they weren't that far away from where he'd been told to wait. Vriska's legs weren't much longer than his, she couldn't take him too far away...

"Waaaaiiiit a minute," she said, her mouth twisting in thought. "What's your sigil name?"

"What? Um, it's, uhh, Nitram." He opened his coat to show the horned circle emblazoned on his tunic.

Vriska grabbed his shoulders and whooped. "I knew it! I recognised those horns! Well, now we can really find the egg - you just gotta fly up and ask!"

_"What?!"_

"Everyone knows your dad can fly! Just think happy thoughts and you will too, like in the book, right?"

"No! No, I can't fly, I don't have any wings!" Tavros backed away from the enthusiastic girl, thinking he was still a safe distance from the cliff edge, not knowing how long the overhanging grass was. "My dad can't fly that high anyway!"

"Well, you can beat him! Come on, I wouldn't be friends with you if you weren't awesome enough to fly that high," Vriska said, pouting and shoving Tavros gently in the chest. He wobbled and backed up again. "Are you scared of heights? Come on, you can so do it! Just try! That's what my mom said when she taught me to swim."

"No, I can't!" Tavros pushed back, not budging Vriska at all. Tinkerbull fluttered around her head and pushed at her with his horns, and she batted him away.

"Yes you can!"

"No I can't!"

"Yes, you _can!"_ With that, Vriska shoved him much harder, his back foot slipped on the grass, his arms pinwheeled briefly, and he went over the cliff backwards with a piercing scream, Tinkerbull plummeting over after him. Vriska was still waiting for him to fly up when she heard the horrible crunching sound and the scream cut short. She stopped dead, fear clutching her chest. When she learned to swim, her mother had picked her up and dropped her in a quiet tidal pool, and much splashing and spluttering later she had successfully kept her head above water. Perhaps flying wasn't really like swimming after all.

She peered over the cliff, little hands clinging tightly to the grass. Luckily the cliff wasn't a very high one, but it was more than high enough to break bones. Tavros was lying in a small but spreading pool of brown blood, Tinkerbull nuzzling his face. He tried to push himself up on his arms as she watched. Good, he wasn't dead.

"Stay there, I'll go get help!" she shouted down at him, and ran off back up the path. She never spotted the sail of the little skiff in a hidden bay not far up the beach.

By the time she returned with Tavros' father, the local carapacian doctor, and a number of other curious and helpful passersby, Tavros and Tinkerbull were gone.


	3. Chapter 3

First he was thrown into the skiff, hands roughly bound and a balled-up rag in his mouth, the bellowing Tinkerbull trapped in a cage, then hauled up onto the high deck of a much bigger ship flying the black and purple of Derse, screaming through the gag as his injuries were jarred, more through fear when he realised he felt nothing at all in his shattered legs. Tavros knew that was bad. Adult trolls surrounded him, big rough trolls of various colours, laughing at him. A greenblood woman knelt down, produced scissors from a black leather bag, and started to cut away his bloody breeches with gentleness but no expression of sympathy; she might as well have been cutting cloth for curtains. He whimpered and tried to struggle, and she stopped him with a warning look.

"Waste of time taking this one," said a brownblood with a heavy Dersite accent which Tavros took a moment to decipher. "Even if he doesn't die on us, who'll want him if he can't walk?"

"You'd be surprised," said another, this one a maroon. "Keep him alive, wait a few sweeps, and he won't need his legs." The speaker winked, and the crew cackled at a joke Tavros didn't get. He hugged himself as the greenblood woman started working on him with splints and bandages. Slavers. He'd been warned; slavery had been illegal in Prospit since time out of mind, but not Derse, and many of his favourite plays featured plucky young heroes snatching captives from their grasp. Those plays seemed very far away and very foolish now.

"Bandages cost a few pennies," the greenblood said. "A living wiggler _and_ their lusus, well, if we can get him fixed up so much the better but even if not some foolish highblood'll want a matching set of ornaments and be willing to pay. It's worth a go."

Tavros wanted to say something, anything. Vriska or his father would have spoken up; he wished either of them were here. Tinkerbull battered at the cage door with his horns, but even though Tavros had seen those horns cut through trees the little bull needed to build up speed to get the appropriate force and in the tiny cage he could barely move his wings or legs at all.

The greenblood tugged Tavros' tunic down to cover him, stood up, and nodded. "I've done all I can. Don't move him or you'll waste all my work - we'll have to leave him here and try not to step on him. Don't look at me like that, we'll be rid of him once we land." With that, the crew turned their backs on Tavros and left him flat on his back on the deck, shaking with terror and cold.

Three days passed, and Tavros spent them on the deck, unable to move. The greenblood put together a little shelter from sailcloth and crates to keep him out of the sun and rain. Each midnight one sulky crewmember or another held him in a sitting position and poured gruel and water down his throat, then sloshed a bowl of water over him and mopped up the mess he and Tinkerbull had been forced to make on the deck. He averted his eyes in shame every time this happened, and hoped it was enough to prevent his legs getting infected. He was aware he was lucky; he could hear the sounds of trolls and humans in fear and pain below the decks, far too many crammed in together in the dark. At least here he had fresh air, and he could see his lusus, though he desperately wished he could also hold him, or even talk to him; every time he tried he earned a kick and an order to stop whining. He spent as much time as he could sleeping, trying to regain some strength, despite the nightmares plagueing him.

At dusk on the third day, they reached the other side of the Skaian Channel, and Tavros' fear peaked as he was strapped to a plank and dragged ashore by two shackled and dead-eyed maroonbloods, at least permitted at last to hold Tinkerbull's cage in his arms.

_Derse._


	4. Chapter 4

Perhaps it was Tavros' fear, or perhaps just the wind, but Derse felt much colder than Prospit, the deep blacks and purples of the stones making the buildings look sick and haunted to the eyes of a child raised in Prospit's whites and golds. The local carapacians were black-shelled too, like walking shadows, and the humans milky-skinned from lack of sun under Derse's clouds and mists. All were cloaked in dark shades, ranging from jewel tones to dull greys and browns, and many wore deep hoods. Some were in collars or shackles, eyes cast down, and Tavros shivered, knowing this living death in this ghostly country awaited him. The two maroonbloods carried the plank unsteadily to a huge cart pulled by two brown hoofbeasts - ordinary animals, not showing the stark whiteness and gem-toned eyes of a psychically bound lusus - and dumped him in it.

"Fine thinking, Glauzi, get a troll we can't stand upright!" snapped one of his captors. "If we make 'em stand over him they'll crush him if we bump and I'm not wasting the effort... Right, you hold this one upright!" Tavros' plank was hauled upright and balanced against the side of the cart, the strap under his arms holding him up with the assistance of a frightened human woman, who refused to meet his eyes. Tavros kept a firm hold on Tinkerbull's cage and tried to pat him through the bars as they rattled along, down the pier and onto the cobbled streets.

The cart finally stopped at a great semicircular wooden stage in a bustling market square, onto which the captives were herded, and a brownblood with a cane and megaphone stood a little to one side. A crowd gathered, a huge human male in heavy chains was shoved to the front of the stage, and the sales pitch started. Tavros tried not to listen, and averted his eyes when the man's shirt was torn away by the salesman's claws to show his strength. The woman holding Tavros up stroked his hair, but said nothing. He heard the prices being offered, and was amazed. More money than the Nitrams had ever dreamed of, and the bidders' tones of voice implied these amounts were little to them, an impression backed up by their fine clothing and the jewels many of them wore, and the fact that several of them had at least one slave already in tow. He hoped he'd be bought by one that already had a slave with them. At least he and Tinkerbull wouldn't be lonely.

One by one the captives officially became slaves, until the cart was almost empty. When the woman holding him was taken, Tavros slid down the plank he was bound to until his legs folded awkwardly beneath him. That was worrying. Pain was the body's way of telling him something was wrong, Dad had always said, and there was still no pain but there was plainly something very wrong here...

He was dragged onstage, the plank edge bouncing painfully over the cobbles and up the steps, and propped up in full view of the crowd, his arms aching from clutching Tinkerbull so hard.

"... minor accident, can't stand up yet, but that just means he can't run away!" the salesman announced, prodding Tavros' unresponsive knee and winking at the audience. "And look at this, ladies and gentlemen, his lusus came along, isn't this wonderful? Not often we get a matching set!" Tinkerbull chirped and fluttered, and the salesman laughed. "Well, ladies and gentlemen, you sure won't ever get a pair like this for such a bargain price again - just a little one and damaged too, but don't that make 'em both so pitiful? I know it does to me, I'm going soft in my old age, almost tempted to keep 'em myself, but, ladies and gentlemen, I couldn't deny you such a bargain, so shall we start the bidding?"

Whoops rose from the crowd, and the salesman and buyers exchanged shouted numbers at a speed that left Tavros' head spinning. He watched the bidders, wondering which would win; the dark-haired woman with the red dress and the cruel smile, the hulking carapacian with the chipped facial shell...

A striking seadweller with a hook-horned slave beside him waved a hand and casually called a number half over again what the last bidder had offered, and the salesman brought his cane down on the stage with a ithwack/i in lieu of a more traditional auctioneer's hammer before anyone else could make an offer. Nobody objected, and Tavros shivered again; this man seemed to scare the adults too. "Sold!" cried the salesman, bowing his head as the seadweller's slave unbound Tavros and cradled him in her arms. "And may you find much joy in your purchase, my lord."

The seadweller waved a dismissive hand and turned with a swirl of his cloak, the slave woman hurrying after him with Tavros and Tinkerbull in her arms.


End file.
